George fucking Bush got on stage and told you idiots not to put Trump in office. The fucking Cheneys got up and said "hey maybe this is a bad idea this time."
There is no complicity, there is just assholes not listening when it actually mattered.
this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2025
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I can't believe the top comment on this post.
The assholeness of blame and what-if-ism is the death knell for any hopes that this generation has what it takes to combat this fascism.
I hope you can stop sniping at people helping you, and act. This tail biting has got to stop. Forget the failures of the past. How much guilt do you want to squeeze from people who may or may not have contributed to its cause?
Succeed today, or it's over. Get your shit together.
And to add to this, emphasis on Together. We need to be a United Left. We need to participate in local and primary elections across the board, starting yesterday. We need to vote for Bernie and people he supports, and in a great many cases that includes voting for the DNC.
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The reason they are silent is because they have been actively, not passively, complicit. Take Obama, for example. The man kept the patriot act in place, expanded it, killed more people with Drones than Bush, including a U.S. citizen, prosecuted journalists and whistleblowers, etc. Bill Clinton repealed Glass Steagal which created the conditions for the 2007-2008 financial crisis, implemented “triangulation” as a political strategy….
If I were any of these people I would shut the fuck up too.
If it wasn’t for you, Nader, Al Gore would’ve been our president. So you can fuck all the way off.
Blaming Nader for the Supreme Court handing the election to the Bush Dynasty is the kind of thinking that paralyzed American politics on the “left.” Nader spent his career working to help the people.
Bush having the governor of the deciding state be his brother and having the Supreme Court in his pocket sealed that election.
Democrats should win every election by massive landslides. Instead, they spent the last several decades bowing to billionaires and providing controlled opposition that suppressed any actual reform.
The illusion of choice between neoliberals morphed into fascism, and it’s now difficult to discern neoliberals from fascists. They have the same interests: Big number goes up for billionaires; nothing else matters.
As a reminder, Chief Justice John Roberts as well as Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Amy Coney Barrett all worked the hanging chads case on the side of Bush.
The fact that people still blame Nader instead of the fucks who literally owe their positions to being on the case is such a joke. Like, why does anyone think these pricks ended up Justices? Because they helped steal an election in 2000.
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I looked at the totals for the 2000 election and found that, had every Nader voter instead voted for Gore, there would have been only two states that would have flipped:
- Florida, by a tally of 2,912,790 Bush to 3,009,741.
- New Hampshire, which would have been 273,559 Bush to 288,546 Gore.
Now, it's entirely possible we still get the ratfucking from SCOTUS and they still throw the state to Bush. But New Hampshire had 4 electoral votes, and had they gone for Gore then it would have been 267 Bush - 270 President Gore.
Bush won because 22,198 people in NH didn't understand that voting for a third-party only hurts the major party that most closely aligns with your ideals.
Having only two major parties and "winner takes it all" elections is a shit system and it was doomed to fail. You can't force people to vote for "the lesser of two evils" forever. That's not how a democracy is supposed to work. Especially if neither of the major parties allign with your ideals. Of course the consequences of this non-compliance are dire but it was inevitable.
You have to vote for the lesser of two evils in order to get a chance at changing the election system.
The GOP are trying to take away voting rights. Not the Dems.
I realize this sounds like false equivalence, but at this point, I do think it needs to be said:
When the lesser of two evils sleepwalks us into the greater of two evils, there’s no material difference between the lesser and greater of two evils.
Having only two major parties and “winner takes it all” elections is a shit system and it was doomed to fail (...) That’s not how a democracy is supposed to work.
I agree. And yet, it's what we have (well...)
Especially if neither of the major parties allign with your ideals. Of course the consequences of this non-compliance are dire but it was inevitable.
That right there is the crux of the issue. It is mathematically certain that the US electoral system, as it is now, will result in two parties. And it is equally certain because of that fact that voting for anyone other than one of those two party candidates will result in helping the other candidate. Knowing this, a responsible voter should decide to support whichever party most closely aligns with their values, because otherwise they're helping the major party they lease align with win instead.
If you agree with the Dems on one issue, and agree with the GOP on zero issues, you should still vote for the Dems in the general election.
only two states
lol yeah, only Florida.
The fact that you're more angry at those 22.198 people than the fact that our election system has been a broken joke since long before the year 2000 and continues to be a broken joke because of the undemocratic Electoral College is kind of pathetic.
Why aren't you mad about that? Instead you're mad at a group of citizens whose only power is their vote, while Senators and House Representatives who could have done something to change us to a better system have done fuck-all in decades.
Further, why aren't you mad that the Supreme Court stole the election? And then rewarded the people who worked the case with their own Supreme Court seats? Or are you just fine with open corruption and prefer to blame people with no power?
EDIT: Oh, also a reminder, Gore won the popular vote by over 500,000 votes. But keep sucking up to this broken dead worthless system that ignores the popular will of the people. Stay mad at hose 22,000 people I guess, because that totally makes fucking sense.
EDIT II: Damn I really triggered a bunch of bitches who don't want to wish for a better world but want to instead make excuses for why this one should keep sucking.
The fact that you're more angry at those 22.198 people than the fact that our election system has been a broken joke since long before the year 2000 and continues to be a broken joke because of the undemocratic Electoral College is kind of pathetic.
It's possible to be mad at both of those things... over and over... every fucking election cycle.
Source: me.
Seriously, I fucking hate arguments like this. "Why are you mad about x and not y?" Bitch, I'm angry about both!
Why all the whataboutism?
Every election cycle there is a non zero number of people that get tricked into voting against their own best interest. That’s a valid thing to call out and be angry about.
Just because that commenter pointed that out doesn’t mean he doesn’t also get angry about all the other things you’re “whatabouting” about.
Holy shit my dude, calm the fuck down. I neither expressed any agreement nor disagreement with the facts, and you're just making baseless assumptions about how I feel about them.
No, I am not "more angry" at the Green voters than I am at insert whatever reason you think was the most important contributor to Gore's loss you want here. But it is ridiculous to assume they (you?) share no part of the blame for Gore's loss, when it's demonstrable that in fact they bear some amount. Also I find it amusing you're telling me who I should be mad at and you never once mentioned the Republicans who voted for Bush.
Did SCOTUS make a bad ruling? Abso-fucking-lutely they did. But you know what? If NH had gone to Gore SCOTUS wouldn't have even mattered.
Does our system suck? Abso-fucking-lutely it does. You can rant and rave all day about how unfair and undemocratic it is, and how much it needs to change and I'll spend all day agreeing with you. But the difference between us is, I recognize that voting is a tactical decision, not an emotional one. I don't particularly like the Democrats, probably for many of the same reasons you would list. I vote for them in the general election, however, because I understand that not doing so helps Republicans win. Again, this is literal demonstrable fact. And I agree with the Dems on a hell of a lot more than I do with the GOP.
edit: also the popular vote literally doesn't matter. Source: non-Presidents Gore and Clinton.
This is the only "argument" these people have.
I'm not even exaggerating when I say that every single discussion that I've had on this site about this topic has ended the same exact way: with a straw man and/or whataboutism. It's all they have.
Your usage of the word tactical is appropriate.
Liberals always try to justify voting for literal genocidaires, over the left demanding something for their ever increasingly important vote, by couching their arguments in the vestments of logic and game theory.
You know, without a mathematical background.
And then they fucking butcher it because the argument they put fourth is from week one of a 101 entry level game theory class.
To put it another way:
You're tactically voting and losing the war when you need to be voting strategically.
That involves the left demanding things for their view, and the right that has stayed in power in the DNC, through cheating, giving some up.
Meanwhile, dumb people that like to feel smart justify demanding the left give up power for free while holding those in power to absolutely no accountability.
Always punching down.
Democrats should win every election by massive landslides. Instead, they spent the last several decades bowing to billionaires and providing controlled opposition that suppressed any actual reform.
And now I no longer hear "vote blue, no matter who" slogan since Chuck Schumer helped the Republicans pass on the budget bill.
I mean, vote blue, but primary the fuck out of people like that.
The neoliberals use the slogan to condition people to accept the false dichotomy of having to always choose the "lesser evil", and make voters complacent from pressuring their representatives.
You talk about the splintered left and GOP corruption and then you unashamedly defame Democrats in a single breath, wow.
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You're not wrong. But at this point I'll take all the allies I can get. Anybody who's willing to stand the fuck up (looking at you, Nader, Bernie, AoC, Walz, Booker) earns a ton of forgiveness for past misdeeds.
And honestly, when I think of about just how badly Harris shit the bed, and how much she and Biden failed the American people, I can bring myself to forgive Nader.
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This kind of circular firing squad bull shit is exactly why American liberals get their ass kicked in almost every election. So busy blaming each other instead of the people that actually elected the moron in charge. What happened to big tent?
We can't possibly blame Republicans for ratfucking our country 50 years straight
If Al Gore had gotten out of the way, Nader could have been our president. And where exactly has Al Gore been lately? Did you read Naders post? He makes a lot of good points. Where the eff are the respected leaders on the dem side. They are all doing nothing.
If Al Gore had gotten out of the way, Nader could have been our president. And where exactly has Al Gore been lately? Did you read Naders post? He makes a lot of good points. Where the eff are the respected leaders on the dem side. They are all doing nothing.
I'm sorry, this has to be satire right? Or are you just 12 years old or something?
Yep. Nader contributed directly to all this shit.
That wasn't the reason. Nader was a voice, not a driver
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I mean... Regardless of them being biased or not, or how good a President they were during their terms, didn't every single one of them warn the people this was to be expected when you put a clown on the White House? That it'd turn into a circus?
Even Kamala warned about it, and I don't even like her and don't see her as POTUS material. But even if she didn't do much as a leader, even if her term was mostly unremarkable, it still wouldn't be as implosive as Trump 2.0.
Words, at the end of the day, are just words. They're pretty worthless if there's no action behind them. And Trump calls that bluff daily. He fully knows people will complain and badmouth him, but won't go further than that. If you wanna call the bluffer's bluff, act, don't just threaten. And even if the worst the people can do to him is remove him from office (aka, no lenghty prison time, or remove all his assets and his friend's, or worse) then he's already won and paved the way for the next one in line to try his shot.
And to be clear - I did not vote for this. Like, at all, because I'm not even american. And yet billions of people are still being affected by this debacle of misplaced trust by our collective predecessors.
As far as a spec of dust such as myself can do, I won't contribute to this dependency ever.
It's scary watching an empire collapse in real time.
Especially when we live there.
It's not so scary when life was already eroding away from under you, and you'd already given up on many of your dreams.
This is America. Most of the inhabitants at this point were sold a pipe dream by the generations before us that had far, far more opportunities and stability.
Now, these same assholes are strip mining what remains, all while lecturing us on how we're demanding too much when we seek financial stability and complaining/panicking when we try to point out what's happening is ruining our futures.
I'm not scared at this point, I'm angry and disappointed.
Who exactly does he think the former presidents are going to convince? They hate Bush, and the rest are all Democrats.
I think it's more about galvanizing and focusing some actual opposition to Trump, and making it more difficult for him to do what he wants to do.
You know who should be doing that? The Democrats in the House and Senate. If they cant even do that a bunch of geriatric retired politicians writing a letter to the editor its going to galvanize anything.
We should be
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Trump's willingness to allow them secret service protection is all that's keeping his unhinged followers from going after them. He could cancel that and announce open season on them if he feels like it. Their families and anyone who works with them would be endangered too.
They're all fantastically rich and frankly most don't have many years left to spend it. They can fucking pay for security rather than disappear during the greatest political crisis in 50 years.
They will just hire private security.
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Shit, I thought he was dead.
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